How do you FTL?

[TheFaithfulStone]

In keeping with the prevailing trend on the "can something FTL" thread, I've started this one.

 

Since all FTL is total fictional BS, which one sounds the most plausible? Do you fold space with hyper-evolved space-octopi a la Dune? Jump drives like Battlestar Galactica? The "meson lift drive" that Pyrotex described?

 

Do you create wormholes, or collapse black holes and "ride the Fermi exclusion wave?"

 

Also, they should all be at least marginally scientifically plausible. You can't "tesseract" like in A Wrinkle in Time.

 

Or at least not in this thread. Maybe if you somehow transported yourself to a different thread where the rules were somehow different? :lol:

 

Personally, I like Star Trek's "warp drive" which is the only one actually smart enough to posit a universal reference frame, and therefore avoid causality violations.

 

TFS

[mods, feel free to move this thread if it's not apropos here]

[cwes99_03]

Well, I think the whole FTL thing is a bit of a misnomer. As is being discussed in the photons have no time thread, photons themselves do not experience time or space. Thus if one could travel as light one would not experience these things either. The only problem would be that all other massed matter would experience time in your absence.

 

I.E. you would leave one point in space and time and travel to another point in space and time at the speed of light, however your particles would experience neither movement nor time while you were traveling. Tough way to say goodbye to your friends as they would all be almost certainly dead by the time you reached your destination (unless you only traveled a few light years away.)

 

As for me I'm definitely for the whole stargate wormhole/event horizon thing. Establishing a connection to a wormhole via a singularity the size of a garage door from my own backyard is super-cool.

[TheBigDog]

I prefer the drive systems descibed by Orson Scott Card in the Ender series. I think it is "Speaker for the Dead" or "Xenocide" that goes into in the most detail. They have two generations of drives in the books. First is a warp drive that is near light speed. The second is a instantanious drive system by jumping in and out of a single dimension universe from and to any point in the universe.

 

Bill

[InfiniteNow]

I like Kip Thorne and his team's work on wormholes. However, I'm becoming more and more intriqued by the Many-Worlds interpretation of QM, and this is leading me down all sorts of rabbit holes.

[Erasmus00]

Also, they should all be at least marginally scientifically plausible. You can't "tesseract" like in A Wrinkle in Time.

 

The suggested Alcubierre drive is very similar to "tesseracting", and where the "warp" in Star Trek's "warp" drive comes from. The idea being you distort space enough(ala GR) that you never violate local laws of physics, but get between A and B faster then a light beam traveling along another path.

-Will

[Jay-qu]

As for me I'm definitely for the whole stargate wormhole/event horizon thing. Establishing a connection to a wormhole via a singularity the size of a garage door from my own backyard is super-cool.

 

Hell yes :)

 

I would like to stress that I dont really consider these things as FTL as if you are bending/warping space or using a wormhole you dont really go faster than light you are shortcutting space to save time.. so I dont thinks its true FTL, because that would be impossible right :confused:

 

The Halo books had an interesting way of FTL, they propose there are little micro wormholes everywhere in space and all you need to do is pick the right one and expand it so the ship can travel through it - which they do with a special drive they created.

[TheFaithfulStone]

Actually one of the interesting things about the Halo FTL scheme was that it found a way around causality violations as well.

 

Basically, it was impossible to travel to far with the "slipspace" drive, but your journey both subjective and objective pretty much took a random amount of time within certain parameters. It could take you thirty minutes one day, and three days the next time.

 

I thought that was a handy way of waving the hand and potentially explaining away why you couldn't travel backward in time. Simple - if that would have been the case it would have taken you longer to get there.

 

Honestly, I was pretty impressed by "The Fall of Reach" but I didn't think to much of "First Strike" and I skipped "The Flood" (I already know what happens in that one :hihi:

 

TFS

[Jay-qu]

Fall of reach was definitly the best one, The Flood was just a copy of the first game :pirate:

 

I found the Improbability drive from The hitch-hikers Guide to the Galaxy a comical solution to FTL travel ;)

[IDMclean]

I would say bugger to the whole beating the rabbit thing. We are the turtle in this picture. Generally the evidence points to the inability to move any faster than or as fast as light without suffering loss of time and othersuch funnythings that would make FTL travel doable.

 

I do however like the Probability Drive Idea, R.A.H.'s book "Number of the Beast" explains the basic premise. It's really quiet beautiful, You "push" on the probability of a given thing and force it's probability of being in a given area (or universe depending on interpertation) to be Statisticly significant resulting in the given thing "popping" out of existence and "popping" in to existence somewhere (maybe somewhen or worse) else.

 

The imporability drive of Hitch-Hikers is just a parody of the whole Idea, It's actually more or less a scientificly fesiable theorm. that's to say "Looks good on the drawing board".

[Jay-qu]

i dont even think it looks good on the drawing board! - how can you 'push' somethings probability, the whole idea is moot

[TheFaithfulStone]

Easy Jay. You forget how fast it's going. REALLY HARD.

 

TFS

[IDMclean]

To push something all you have to do is measure it. When something interacts the Heiseinberg uncertainy princible comes into play. I'm not absolutely clear on all the Quantum stuff but suffice it to say that the more certain of the velocity the less certain of the position.

 

In the quantum world things pop in and out all the time, so why can't we?

[Jay-qu]

because thats on a plank length scale - the probabilities for something as large as us to quantum tunnel accross the galaxy are huge! or small :hihi: It must be the determinist in me, but I dont see how you can affect something physically just by measuring it.

[IDMclean]

Because in order to measure it you must interact with it, basic prinicible of quantum physics. Through this interaction you change the outcome of an event. This is sorta what I understand the "pushing" to be.

[Jay-qu]

so by interacting with it you push its probability.. and this results in FTL travel how?

[IDMclean]

Not really FTL, You skip the whole movement part by forcing your probablility field elsewhere and suddenly existing where you want to exist. It has to do with the whole Wave collapse thing I think. You do "speed" up past light, you just take a short cut. I'm doing a really bad job explaining, anyone want to help me out?

[TheFaithfulStone]

I don't think that has any chance of working.

 

The uncertainty about where something the size of a spaceship is is NIL. Heck, the uncertainty about where something the size of a grain of sand is is nil.

 

That quantum probability stuff only works on a quantum scale. But what you're describing won't even work on that scale I don't think. You certainty of it's velocity would have to be so high that you were almost utterly unsure of it's position.

 

Anyway, interesting idear.

 

What about Stutterwarp?

 

Definitely gets the award for coolest name.

 

TFS